Pepitas Two Ways: Brittle and Pesto

So, this post may be a little too early, in the sense that pepitas, which are hulled pumpkin seeds, are not really in season yet, but I have an excuse.  I bought a bag of roasted, salted pepitas at Trader Joe's back in January when I was in the States, with no particular plan in mind for them.  I brought them back to Jakarta, set them on the counter, and there they sat for six months...  I felt like I needed to use them or lose them, so here we are.  I've got two fall recipes for you...

Pepita Brittle: sweety, salty, crunchy, awesome.  I was a little bit worried about candy making in a humid environment (see: weepy marshmallows, January 2012), but this recipe from Smitten Kitchen was pretty foolproof. 

A spicy pepita pesto, with basil and cilantro, pepitas in the place of pine nuts, lime instead of lemon juice and a chili for heat... served on pasta with roasted squash (I used kabocha squash, but you could do pumpkin, butternut, what have you...):

Guava Frozen Yogurt

After our last frozen treat ended up being a bit of a disappointment, we needed some chilled redemption in the form of frozen yogurt. 

I made guava paste with fresh guava and sugar, then stirred some of it into plain yogurt to sweeten it up.  I froze the yogurt in the ice cream maker, then layered it with additional guava paste to make a pink swirl throughout. 

Tart and tasty!  It got a little bit icy, but a few seconds on the counter before scooping solved that.

Jeni's Salted Caramel Ice Cream: Meh

Hmm... while this ice cream looks kinda awesome, it was unfortunately, meh.  The recipe receives the thumbs up from neither Tim nor I.

I have successfully made salted butter caramel ice cream before and loved the recipe (from my fav, David Lebovitz), and yet I found myself tempted to try this recipe for salted caramel ice cream that I stumbled upon on The Bitten Word.  The methodology differs from the Lebovitz way in that it does not acquire its thickness from an eggy custard, but from an intriguing combination of cream cheese, corn starch and corn syrup.  Plus the internet is full of raves about Jeni's ice cream, a popular ice cream shop in Ohio and Tennessee.

It wasn't very hard to pull together, but we just plain did not like the results.  Too bitter (maybe I prefer the larger amount of sugar called for in the Lebovitz recipe?), too weirdly cheesecakey from the cream cheese (it's hard to believe that "cheesecakey" could be a bad thing, but here it is), strangely sour (maybe from boiling the milk?).  Sad...

We tried to jazz it up with some caramel sauce (Simply Recipes' version), but to no avail.  Oh well... live, learn, stick to the tried-and-true basics when it comes to ice cream.

Adventures in Challah Stuffing

One half batch of my favorite challah dough... two loaves of challah stuffed with various delicious ingredients... two explosions in my oven.

First:  almond stuffed challah.

I got the idea after impulsively buying a bag of almond meal (finely ground almonds).  I thought that maybe I could make a filling for the challah that was reminiscent of the sugary almond paste that they put in those buttery, delicious almond croissants.

I made the filling according to this recipe and wrapped it into my usual no-knead challah dough.  Apparently I didn't wrap it tight enough, though, because after a few minutes in the oven it looked like the explosion you see below:

Luckily, all of that sweet, toasted almond shrapnel was pretty tasty, and a good amount of the filling stayed in the bread, creating a subtle swirl of almondy goodness throughout:

Second: spiced apple stuffed challah.

This one was to use up some Malang apples I had sitting in the fridge... I wanted to follow this recipe from What Jew Wanna Eat because I found her blog title and premise to be really hilarious, but I worried that the raw apples wouldn't cook sufficiently inside the bread and I wanted to make sure the spice flavors came through... so instead I sauteed 2 large peeled and diced apples in a teeny bit of butter, a couple dashes of cinnamon, a sprinkle each of cardamom and nutmeg, and about a tablespoon of honey.  Then I wrapped them up in the remaining challah dough, braided it and stuck it in the oven, at which point, you probably guessed, it exploded.

This one didn't have as much leakage as the almond challah, but was still bursting (literally) with apple pieces.  Tasted pretty damn good, though.

The next day it was a little soggy from the moisture of the apples, but a quick warming in the oven took care of that.

Guava Jam

Tim and I saw some really pretty pink fruits at the grocery store last weekend... we had no idea what they were and the Indonesian label was not particularly elucidating for me (I only recognized two words- "merah," which means red and "biji," which means seed).  We thought perhaps they were some sort of round papaya, maybe?  We took a chance and bought them.

When I got home I did some googling and realized that we had purchased guavas.  Interesting.  My next question was: what the hell do I do with guavas?  More googling... guava paste!  Apparently guava paste is a big thing in the Caribbean, where its made into empanadas or paired with salty cheese. 

I made the paste based on these recipes I found and it was mostly successful- mine didn't seem to gel as much as it should have (perhaps it needed pectin to do so? maybe more cooking time?).  I tried to mold it in these shallow muffin top pans so that I would end up with little guava paste discs that I could cut into wedges, but ultimately it never hardened and stayed jam-like, so I put it in a jar and popped it in the fridge.

I spread it on crackers and topped it with a tiny square of feta cheese- awesome appetizer.  It also worked quite well on crackers with a smudge of cream cheese as well as on buttered toast.  Mmm.

4 guavas made a lot of jam, so maybe my next step is a recipe with the guava paste... cheesecake? BBQ sauce?  Turnovers or some sort of pastry? Souffle?

Lemon Basil Ice Cream

While looking for mint, basil and cilantro at our local grocery store (to use in my grilled veggie salad), Tim and I unknowingly stumbled upon a new (to us) herb: lemon basil. 

 

I saw a bundle of it it tucked in the greens section, which is a tangle of some familiar and some unknown greens marked haphazardly in English, Bahasa Indonesia and Japanese.  It looked basil-esque, so I picked it up and gave it a sniff, only to inhale an awesomely fragrant lemony scent.  Once the produce guy (who is my new BFF, as I ask him the name of a new veggie or herb every time I shop there and he obligingly informs me of the name in at least 4 different languages) rang it up, I saw that it was called "daun kemangi."  Apparently it's used pretty regularly in Indonesian cooking and, since it's local, it's dirt cheap: a massive bundle for 2590 rupiah, which is the equivalent of 27 U.S. cents.

Anywho, I dropped some of it in the salad,  and then had a ton left over.  David Lebovitz and "The Perfect Scoop" to the rescue, yet again.  He had a recipe for basil ice cream spiked with lemon zest, so I followed his recipe, substituting lemon basil for the traditional Genovese basil.  Awesome stuff- creamy, lemony (somewhat lemongrassy), herby, sweet.  A good accompaniment to spicy Asian dishes, I'd say.  Get thee to thy green grocer or farmer's market and find some lemon basil!

Pineapple Vodka Cocktail

I promised you (and Tim) a pineapple cocktail, and here it is!

I think we may turn this spate of elaborate cocktails into a weekly thing, inspired by some colleagues of Tim's who live in Bangkok and have new cocktail Friday each week.  Anyone want to join in?

Dubbed "Teenage Dream" by its creator, this fresh pineapple juice cocktail is a relative of the mojito, but made with vodka instead of rum.  Lime and mint are muddled with sugar, pineapple juice and vodka are stirred in, and then the whole thing is poured over ice, topped with a spritz of soda water and enjoyed.

We liked this, but blending and straining the fresh pineapple may have taken this cocktail into the category of too much work (or at least too many dishes for us, as we are dishwasher-less).  In the flavor category, it's a winner, though!

Pretzel Toffee

Omg.  This pretzel toffee stuff is addictive.  Pretzels.  Butter.  Sugar.  Chocolate.  Salt.

It's pretty hard to go wrong with those ingredients...  salty and sweet, crunchy and chocolatey.

Although, go wrong I did, but it turned out ok in the end.  I followed Smitten Kitchen's recipe, except I substituted the matzoh crackers with pretzels (a la this interpretation).  For some reason, though, my caramel went wonky, causing the butter and sugar to separate, which I didn't realize until after I had poured it over the pretzels.  Once hardened, it didn't seem to make much of a difference as far as taste or consistency, which is why there are only 2 pieces remaining for this photo shoot.  Addictive, indeed.

New (To Me) Tips, Techniques and Recipes

Here are some easy but interesting tips and techniques, as well as a couple new recipes that I tried out this week... excuse the unattractive photos- all of these techniques were implemented after dark! 

Skillet smashed potato technique:

Pretty cool, easy and fun technique for making potatoes a little bit more exciting.  I boiled mine in chicken stock and a pat of butter until tender (based on this recipe), then smashed them lightly, seasoned with salt and pepper and threw them on a hot cast iron skillet to crisp up on the outside. Yum.

Vanilla-scented sugar:

I had scraped the seeds out of a vanilla bean for my coconut/vanilla rice pudding earlier this week, but didn't want to let the still-fragrant vanilla pod go to waste, so I stuck them into my sugar.  The pods release their remaining seeds and awesome vanilla scent into the sugar.  It's pretty intoxicating to open up the jar every morning to get sugar for my coffee.  Give it a try!

Creamed spinach:

Tim bought some fancy Australian filet mignon at our neighborhood butcher, so I seared them on the cast iron skillet and served them alongside this tasty creamed spinach from Tyler Florence.  I loosely interpreted it since I had frozen spinach and wanted to add some shallots. I sauteed the garlic and shallots first, then added in the cream and spices per the recipe and then dropped in the frozen spinach, which I had defrosted in the microwave and then de-watered by squeezing it with my ricer.  The spinach soaked up the cream, so it doesn't look very creamy, but it tasted rich and delicious.

Nutella banana pancakes:

I needed to use up one lone overripe banana we had hanging around, so I decided to make these super easy, extremely light and fluffy nutella banana pancakes.  So good!  The key to these pancakes is to not over mix them.  Leave the lumps. Don't be tempted to try to get a smooth batter.

 PS: Tim made me take a picture of these particular pancakes he made because he was proud of the perfect color and shape he achieved. 

Creamy parmesan salad dressing:

 Quick and delicious creamy parmesan salad dressing, based on the house dressing from a famous chain restaurant.  Takes about 3 minutes to make and tastes awesome.  So much better than pre-made salad dressing.

I made marshmallows... and it was messy.

After making a couple batches of ice cream in the past week, I had about 8 egg whites lounging in the fridge, waiting to be put to good use.  I did some Googling to try to find a recipe I could make with all those egg whites that didn't involve an oven, which we are not yet in possession of....  My ice cream guru, David Lebovitz, had some suggestions which included homemade marshmallows.  Marshmallows don't require an oven, so I decided to give them a try. 

Tray of sticky marshmallow dough.

 Messy, very messy.  First sticky, then powdery.  Then, in my case, sticky again.

Cutting and powdering the marshmallows.

I used sheet gelatin since they didn't seem to have plain powdered gelatin at our grocery store here (despite the Indonesia's love of weird jiggly gelatin desserts).  Luckily, David's instructions included options for sheet gelatin.  I also ended up using cane syrup in place of corn syrup, which I didn't find here. 

Marshmallows.  Fin.

Overall, my version seemed to work out pretty well... bouncy, fluffy, light, sugary, just like marshmallows should be.  However, they were a little damp, which I think is because I got impatient when the mixture was cooling.  I should have let it go longer.  Also, apparently I am not very good at cutting a sheet into equally-sized squares.  My talents lie elsewhere.

Now we just need to see if they melt properly, because, as you well know, marshmallows are best when they're crispy on the outside and melty on the inside.  S'mores are on the menu this weekend, provided I can find graham crackers.

Caramel Pudding

I was craving homemade dessert pretty hard core this week.  I think I've read/looked at one too many Christmas cookie articles/slideshows. Seeing as Tim and I have not yet procured an oven for our Jakarta apartment, homemade baked goods were out of the question... I needed a stove-top treat.  After thinking about what ingredients I had around the house and doing some googling, I settled on pudding.  Low and behold, I was already in possession of all the necessary components for the drool-inducing caramel pudding I saw on Smitten Kitchen and then again on Joy the Baker.  

Lame photo, I know.  But this pudding is delicious.

Why I decided to tackle a caramel recipe when I only have bare bones kitchen equipment is beyond me.  But it ended up working out nonetheless, whisk or no whisk.  Fork to the rescue!  I was slightly concerned (read: panicked) when the caramel seized up after adding the milk, turning into a rock hard ball of sugar candy, but after some heating and coaxing it relaxed back into the milk mixture.

My only regret is that I wish I had let the sugar caramelize a little bit more before adding in the milk.  Deb called for cooking the sugar until a "deep amber" color was achieved.  I'd say mine was more like a "pale gold" when I totally chickened out and took it off the heat, making my final pudding product much lighter in color and flavor than Deb or Joy's.  But still totally delicious!